.out.of.character.

slammed the door shut behind.

The mare took a few bold steps forward, then froze in the middle of the street. She leaned back on her haunches, hugging herself in the cold drizzle. The pain lingered in her left wing, but it was numb now, as if throbbing from a distance. The mare sighed, then slicked her mane back.

Something with color appeared in the edge of her vision. She looked straight up. A bright rainbow stretched overhead, dividing the overcast skies in half. The simple bands of nebulous colors brought a feeling of warmth and delight to the pegasus. With a calm breath, she closed her eyes, beginning to lose her grip on the harsh words that had rattled between her and Twilight.

A cold droplet of water fell on Rainbow's nose, followed by another. Then a warm drop fell, staining her muzzle.

Rainbow's nose wriggled. She opened her eyes, blinking. Running a hoof over her face, she then held it out towards the gray light. It dripped with red juices.

Rainbow's lips parted.

Two more warm drops of water fell, splashing blood-red across her fetlock.

Rainbow flinched. She looked straight up.

The rainbow was gone. All was gray and dull once again.

Shivering, Rainbow looked at her hoof. Clear rainwater dribbled off the edges of her limb. She felt cold and alone in the center of Ponyville. She glanced left and right. Some ponies trotted their separate ways. Others stood at street corners, talking jovially, oblivious to the perpetual drizzle.

Rainbow took a shuddering breath. She glanced at the treehouse behind her, then steeled herself by trotting ahead.

"Gotta find Fluttershy," she muttered out loud. "Sort this all out."

"There is nothing to sort out," whispered a voice from the margins.

Rainbow halted to a stop in the splattering mud. She looked every which way.

Crowds of citizens mingled in the streets, but none were looking at her.

None were close enough for the pegasus to even hear.

"I saw you go in there," the voice whispered on. "I'm sorry, Rainbow Dash, but it's already got Twilight. It's about to get me. Soon... it will get you too."

"Who... wh-who's there?!" Rainbow Dash stammered. "Show yourself!"

"Not where it can see me..." A lime-green hoof motioned from a dark alleyway sandwiched between two buildings.

Rainbow squinted. One nervous step at a time, she trotted towards the shadows. She leaned her muzzle forward to peer in. A tug of mint-green telekinesis did all the rest.

"Whoah...!" Rainbow Dash hissed as she was tugged into the niche. A frazzled unicorn with a soaking wet mane stared the pegasus down. "Lyra?!" Rainbow wheezed. "Lyra Heartstrings?!"

"You know m-my name?"

"Pffft! Of course I do! What's that supposed to mean?"

The unicorn exhaled, hugging a lyre to her chest. "That means it hasn't won yet."

"What hasn't?"

Lyra held the musical instrument up. "Do you see this in my hooves?"

Rainbow Dash slowly nodded. "Yeah... Neato," she droned into the shadowed niche. "It matches your cutie mark to a T."

"Yes, only I haven't owned one since foalhood!" Lyra hissed, shivering. Her eyes were bright amber beacons in the darkness. "I left mine at my parents' home in Canterlot. Here, in Ponyville, I'm a musical theory teacher. I don't play the lyre!"

"Uh huh. Your point?"

Lyra sniffled. "So why am I suddenly holding one?"

Rainbow looked at Lyra, at the musical instrument, then at her again. Smiling plastically, she lowered the harp between them. "I think... you should lay off the cider, Lyra."

"Rainbow Dash, think." The unicorn leaned forward. "Think hard. Have you recently encountered something that you couldn't understand? Or been compelled to do something you normally wouldn't do? Or to think something that you normally wouldn't think?"

"What are you even going on about?!" Rainbow grumbled. "First Pinkie, then Twilight, now you! Has everypony in this town gone—?" She froze in place, blinking.

Lyra watched with quiet anticipation.

"Come to think of it..." Rainbow fidgeted. "Yeah. A lot of things... a l-lot of things are off. Like... little things. Stuff that my friends are saying. Stuff that I see ponies doing in the middle of the street... or think I see them doing. And... like... there was this creepy cardboard box at the front of my house. And I felt this intense desire to look inside..."

"Did you follow through with it?"

Rainbow shook her head. "No. I... I-I scrambled my way to Twilight's place instead. Funny..." She shuddered, running a hoof through her mane. "It was so freaky, and yet... I-I can't believe I nearly forgot about it until now."

"But you didn't obey it." Lyra grinned. "That's how we know it hasn't gotten you."

"What are you even talking about?! What is it?!"

Thunder rolled.

"Shhhhh!" Lyra tugged at Rainbow until the two mares were squatting low, facing across from each other inside the narrow alleyway of echoing raindrops. "Speaking about it only makes it hungrier. If you're quiet enough, you can even hear it growling."

"H-huh?!"

"I haven't got much time left. That, I'm sure of."

"Then why are you even talking to me?"

"Because I have to pass the truth on," Lyra said. "That none of this is right."

"None of what?"

"Whatever Ponyville's turning into. Whatever you and I are turning into. I've fought it for a long time, but I can't last forever. You, on the other hoof, you've still got time. I can see it in your eyes. You're not like the other ponies."

"What makes you say that?" Rainbow asked.

"Because you're yourself, aren't you?" Lyra glared. "Think hard. You know in your heart the way things should be.... that this is not a cold and chaotic world... that you have friends who love you and you love them back and nothing... nothing should ever change that." She gulped. "We are born of love and we give love. That's why we've never suffered... at least not until now." She gnashed her teeth. "Because it's gotten ahold of us. And one by one... it is dragging us all to some place where we're not supposed to be... where we simply become its playthings."

Rainbow Dash winced. She leaned back, clenching her head. "Nnnngh..."

"Tinnitus?"

"Mmm... huh?"

"Ringing in your ears?"

"Y-yeah..." Rainbow's eyes squinted open. "How... h-how'd you know?"

"I've heard it too." Lyra took a deep breath. "That means it's listening to us. It knows that I know... and that you are starting to know."

"What... wh-what are you even—?"

"Any other pain you can't explain?"

"Well, yeah! My left wing! But I can totally explain it!"

"How?"

"I busted it yesterday while pulling off a stunt for the Wonderbolts!"

"Really? At what time?"

"I dunno... yesterday!"

"In the morning or in the afternoon?"

"What difference does it make, Lyra?!"

"Because if you can't remember when the accident took place, then that means you're only feeling the pain because it wants you to!"

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, but she had no response. She flexed her feathers, but the pain felt numb somehow. "Come to think of it, just a bit earlier, I could have sworn that it was my right wing instead that was—"

"Tell me..." Lyra cocked her head to the side. "Is all you know about the stunt accident from what other ponies have told you?"

Rainbow Dash bit her lip.

"Do you even remember when this day began?"

"It... it was this morning..."

"And when was this morning?"

"Before the afternoon! Before..." Rainbow peered up at the thin slit of gray sky.

"You can't remember, can you?" Lyra grinned, shivering. "Just how long has it been like this? This rainy... slimy... miserable overcast sky?"

"It... it had to have..." Rainbow shook her head. "An afternoon can't last forever."

"Rainbow, listen to me." Lyra scooted forward. "We're not in the center. This is more akin to the fringe."

"H-huh?!"

"Once it grabs ahold of you, you cease to be who you are... you cease to have a name... an identity... or even a character. That's because you become what it wants you to be, and soon you become it itself. And until it has its way, or we somehow miraculously fight it into submission, it will always be like this, with no ending or beginning, except for ours. It'll even repeat things endlessly until it's fully satiated. The only thing that will make it stop is boredom. And what are the chances of that, huh? You see a train wreck, you stand by and gawk at it forever, especially if it never stops steaming... burning... bleeding."

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "I... I don't get any of this, Lyra. This is way over my head."

"At least you have your own head," Lyra said. "I can't even hear my own words because of the ringing in mine." She shuddered. "I don't know how much longer I'll last at this point, but so long that I got the chance to tell somepony... anypony who could listen, then I'll know that I still got to fight it in the end, even long after it takes me."

Rainbow glanced at the lyre in her grasp, then at the unicorn herself. "I'm not buying any of this."

"Don't believe me?" Lyra pointed out the alleyway with her horn. "Take a look outside."

"What for?"

"Just take a look."

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. She stood up and trotted out into the open. "I swear, if this is all one big stinkin' practical joke, I am going to drop kick somepony into next yea—" She froze in place, her blood running cold.

Ponies on the street corner were staring at her. Ponies eating on a cafe's patio were gazing steadily, along with their waiter. Mules and stallions and other workhooves had stopped in the middle of whatever wagons they were pulling and stood in the center of the road, staring towards the alleyway with unblinking eyes.

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. Slowly backing up into the alleyway. From behind her, harpstrings began plucking. She shuddered, listening as a melody wafted through the air.

Almost instantly, the ponies smiled and returned to what they were doing, speaking amicably, going about their daily labors, dragging their carts to far off destinations, oblivious to the thin curtain of rain dribbling over their coats.

Rainbow gulped, then stood back beside Lyra. She looked to see the unicorn plucking away at her strings with her magic. "Did... did you stop them?"

"Only because it's what it expects of me," Lyra said, her eyes locked on the various clusters of rainsoaked Ponyvilleans. "Because of that, it's glossed over what's happened here. Otherwise..." She shrugged. "Who knows?"

"But... b-but I thought the whole point was to avoid it," Rainbow said.

"I know." Lyra nodded with a shudder. "Unfortunately, I didn't know that until it was too late. I thought playing this instrument was just letting me slip past it, but now I'm becoming what it wants." She gulped. "It's too late for me. Soon enough, I'll belong to it completely."

Rainbow bit her lip. "And then what will it make you do?"

"Who knows?" Lyra shrugged while playing her music. "I shudder to think. Not that it matters. Soon enough, I'll know... and yet I won't. I'll be just like the rest of Ponyville. It's far too late for them too."

"And... and for me?"

"You have to get out of here, Rainbow Dash," Lyra said. "Grab somepony you know who isn't affected by it yet and find a way out of its sphere of influence."

"Somepony who isn't affected?!"

"I knew you were stubborn enough... strong enough to fight it." Lyra sniffled, smiling painfully. "Use that strength to your advantage."

"Okay..." Rainbow took several steady breaths, courageously approaching the rainy world beyond the alleyway. "Okay... okayokayokay..." She nevertheless seethed. "I got this."

"Remember. Be yourself. It's the only way to avoid it, but it also makes you a target."

Rainbow gritted her teeth. "A target... r-right..."

"And now that you know..." Lyra's amber eyes twitched. "It knows that you know. You haven't much time left."

"But... the rain..."

"Only you can tell the difference." Lyra gulped. "Now leave. Find a way out."

Rainbow Dash held her breath and galloped straight into the drizzle.

"And don't fall for its tricks!" Lyra shouted, plucking the strings harder so that the melody masked her voice. "Even if you only fight it halfway, all you'll do is get stuck in its grasp forever!"

"I won't get stuck..." Rainbow seethed, clenching her teeth shut in mid gallop. The ringing intensified in her ears, but she struggled past it, snarling. "I won't! I'll break on through! I'll—"

Rainbow Dash decided